Well, this sounds like a real-life, rom-com nightmare. Two people decided to forgo the typical first date dinner and meet each other for the first time during a hike in the woods. They ventured into the Angeles National Forest in Arcadia, California with a map and a phone, but ended up getting lost in the trails with…

I have always been drawn to adventure, though sometimes not in healthy ways. In college I drank too much, not only because it was the norm but also for the way that normal rules disappeared and I never knew what would happen. After drinking, friends were more likely to go skinny-dipping or dance without embarrassment.…

The Park Ranger parks his truck and steps over to my tent as gingerly as he could in his heavy boots. “Hello? Hey.” I poke my head out and look up to see him sporting the beige uniform of woodsy authority. The light behind him, dappled through the trees, is fading from gold to dark blue.

Three months after packing up my life and moving to the Peruvian city of Cusco, my childhood friend Pete came to visit. We were in the mood for a serious jungle adventure and had loaded up on typhoid vaccinations and malaria pills. We were ready for the Amazon.

I'm embarrassed about all the time I've spent thinking about my weight. No one has ever told me I needed to lose any. Doctors mark my weight "average," and aside from a few middle school incidents, friends, family, and strangers have been positive about my body. But I'm not always happy with my appearance. Although I…

This summer, I listened to the audiobook of Wild while backpacking through the New Mexican desert. The year before that, I'd hiked the Pacific Crest Trail alone, and as the book continued I realized I'd started just where Cheryl Strayed had, in the middle of the Mojave desert.

Over the past year and a half, I spent nine months living under a tarp in the wilderness. Each morning, I stuffed my belongings into my backpack—cheese, cookies, sleeping bag, headlamp, raincoat—then walked until dark. I crossed California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. It was…

A former ballet teacher and probable Willa Cather fan named Bernice Ende has been ambling across the United States at a stately pioneer pace of about four miles per hour. Her dog has been traveling with her in a most adorable fashion — sitting in a box on top of a horse that seems, at least from a few snapshots, to be…

This terribly helpful Men's Health article "How to Calm Down an Angry Woman" (ladies be crazyyy), reminded us of a nature guidebook; if you replace the word "woman" with "bear," it could be really helpful on your next camping trip! So in an effort to help Men's Health more clearly make their point, we made some minor…